


Tradition, And Its Reinvention

by dollsome



Category: Anne of Green Gables
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-17
Updated: 2011-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-27 10:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollsome/pseuds/dollsome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anne's first Christmas at Green Gables involves the reinvention of a Cuthbert family tradition and the continued pain of losing Diana to an accidental currant wine binge. Also, there's gingerbread.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tradition, And Its Reinvention

The making of gingerbread men at Christmastime was an old Cuthbert family tradition. Marilla well remembered partaking in the ritual with her mother and her grandmother, and the knack the kitchen had, on those occasions, for emanating a warmth that could not be entirely attributed to the oven. Of course, in her adult years it had fallen to her to keep the thing going, and so she did. Friends and neighbors had come to expect their plates of gingerbread cookies from the Cuthberts, and Marilla was not one to disappoint the expectations of friends and neighbors. If the kitchen was less vibrant than it once had been, more full of oven-warmth than any other kind – well, Marilla made a point not to pay any mind to that.

It had, unsurprisingly, been Rachel Lynde who said, “It seems there’s something not natural about you all alone in the kitchen slaving over that gingerbread, Marilla. It’s right lonely, that’s what—” (Here she ignored Marilla’s dry proclamation that she hoped Rachel thought her made of strong enough stuff to endure a few hours alone in the kitchen.) “—and loneliness has got no business hanging around at Christmas.” And from that year onward, Rachel had insisted on coming over on gingerbread day. And although the woman could talk an ear off a snake, and was rather liberal in doling out measurements of cinnamon, Marilla admitted – though only to herself – that she liked the company. Matthew only got to hear the ear-off-a-snake and liberal-amounts-of-cinnamon parts, but the slight twitching of his moustache led Marilla to suspect he sensed her liking for the company, and thought it a real good thing himself. And so even in the absence of daughters, the Green Gables kitchen still found itself rather merry.

This year, of course, was different.

“A holiday tradition!” Anne said rapturously – her brain more full of stars than sense, no doubt, as she carried the salt from the pantry rather than the sugar. To her credit, she realized the mistake right away, and nearly danced her way back to the pantry. In spite of the distance, her giddy voice kept Marilla company all too well. “Oh, I tell you, Marilla, I always _dreamed_ of partaking in a holiday tradition! Can you think of anything sweeter and more homey? A few years ago I swore to begin one of my own, and keep it up in secret – the Hammonds weren’t a family for traditions; the babies always seemed to cry extra on Christmas – but it’s not much fun having a tradition all by yourself. Katie Maurice and I vowed to read aloud to each other from A Christmas Carol by moonlight, but then Mrs. Hammond threw my copy in the fire one day when I was minding it more than the twins. I must confess, I wept _excruciatingly_. That little book had been such a dear friend to me. (Isn’t it wonderful, Marilla, how books can be almost better friends than people? Though no volume could equal Diana, of course.)” There was the slightest of pauses, and then— “(But I think The Bride of Lammermoor is worth one and a half Ruby Gillises at least. And King Solomon’s Mines an _infinite_ number of Gil—never mind.)

“So really, this is the first holiday tradition I have ever borne witness to in my whole life,” Anne finished as she made her triumphant return, clutching the sugar this time. “And I could not be happier. Just think how we’ll look back on this day, years from now!”

“Indeed,” Marilla said wryly. “As the year no gingerbread got made, I imagine, because a certain someone thought it better to chatter the day away.”

Anne quickly became a portrait of dutiful silence. The kitchen seemed to sober along in solidarity. In spite of herself, Marilla wondered whether the child was the only one who needed to learn a thing or two about holding her tongue.

  
+

  
The gingerbread ritual was old hat to Rachel, and she had a fine time showing Anne the ropes. Anne, on her part, listened with bright-eyed interest, and followed Rachel’s instructions to the letter. The girl had learned how to coexist peacefully with Rachel Lynde – that in and of itself was a testament to her cleverness _and_ her good sense. Marilla felt quite proud watching the scene, and could not entirely resist exchanging a smile with Anne as Rachel railed, with good-natured indignation, against the current state of baked goods served at social functions in Avonlea.

Anne’s first great misstep did not occur until all the cookies had been baked, and were awaiting frosting. The Cuthbert gingerbread men wore a standard uniform, and had for untold years: a scarf, done in either red or green, and three buttons on his chest. Add to that eyes and a mouth (noses seemed to add unnecessary complexity, and to make things rather crowded), and you were done. This simplicity had served its purpose well for generations – indeed, Marilla now frosted the cookies with such casual precision that it bordered on the artistic.

But alas, it was not quite artistic enough for Anne.

“Why, Anne Shirley!” Rachel exclaimed, catching a glimpse of Anne’s (attempt at a) masterpiece. “What in tarnation is that? It’s certainly like no gingerbread man I’ve ever seen.”

Marilla took a look – and sure enough, its equal had never existed. The unfortunate gingerbread man was covered in globs of pink frosting, and the black that was used for the buttons had been spread around its head and shoulders in a very pathetic imitation of tresses. Its mouth was another too-big glob of pink, and the black eyes were hopelessly deformed by a sorry attempt at eyelashes.

“Anne, I hope you haven’t got any idea of giving the neighbors _that_ ,” Marilla said. The girl’s obsession with swooning raven-haired ladies was unfortunate at the best of times, and certainly belonged nowhere near Marilla’s kitchen. She tried to imagine how Jerry Buote the hired boy would respond to being given _that_ for Christmas, and had to stop before the urge to laugh could spoil her stern demeanor entirely.

“No,” Anne responded, in the carefully measured tones she used on the rare occasions where she was upset and trying not to show it. “This one was meant to be mine. And meant to be much prettier.”

Anne sighed a woeful sigh down at the gingerbread “beauty,” and Marilla suddenly understood.

“Oh, Anne,” she said, in tones she suspected were slightly too soft to garner Rachel’s approval, “you won’t get Diana back by putting her likeness onto a cookie.”

“I know I won’t,” Anne said sadly, more to the cookie than to Marilla. “I do know it, Marilla, and I swear I have all but resigned myself to a life without my bosom friend in it. I have been carrying on pretty nicely, I think, considering my heart has been cleft in twain since October. But it’s my very first Christmas in Avonlea, and if you had told me in September that I wouldn’t have spent it with Diana, I wouldn’t have believed you one bit. It positively _pains_ me to wander the wintry beauty outside and not be able to share it with her. And when I think that I shall never spend a single Christmas in Diana’s company for the rest of my days, why, I—”

“There there, child,” Rachel cut in – a good thing, too, because Anne’s eyes were beginning to shine with tears. “You’re much too young yet to be thinking about all the rest of your days. When you’ve been around as long as Marilla and I have, you come to realize that nothing turns out the way you expect.”

This was quite a generous statement from Rachel Lynde, who (Marilla was fairly convinced) believed herself second only to God when it came to presiding over how things turned out.

It seemed to have a good effect on Anne, whose face brightened tentatively. “So you think Diana’s and my paths might cross again someday after all?”

“Anne Shirley, you live in Avonlea,” Rachel declared, “where everyone’s path is forever crossing everyone else’s. There’s just no other way to live so long as you live here, plain and simple. If there were, I would have seen to it that I’d never set eye on Hetty King again long ago. But I just quarreled with her something fierce over the last jar of molasses at the general store this morning, so. That’s that. It’s no use trying to keep folks apart here, and Diana’s mother will realize that sooner or later.”

Anne cast a more hopeful look down at the lamentable Diana cookie, then said, “I so wanted it to turn out beautifully. I thought that perhaps I could get Jerry Buote to sneak it over to her, so that she would be reassured that her bosom friend was thinking of her at Christmas. Only I think I got a bit too swept up in the artistic spirit, and the artistic spirit doesn’t care a bit for patience and detail. At least, not when it’s sweeping me up. And I so wanted the eyelashes to be perfect! Diana has simply scrumptious eyelashes.”

“They’ll be scrumptious enough, I reckon,” Rachel said, eyeing the cookie. She had yet to quite get used to Anne’s peculiar word choice. Marilla found that she had grown accustomed to it herself. It often did not seem near as ridiculous as it ought to have, these days.

“I suppose the idea has its own kind of charm,” Marilla admitted. As she stared down at the cookie, her fingers seemed to tingle, just slightly, with the prospect of the challenge. Their gingerbread men _had_ been wearing red or green scarves for an awful long time …

  
+

  
“Oh, Marilla!” Anne said a half hour later, beside herself with delight. “She’s a masterpiece! I mean it. She’s the very spitting image of Diana! Well, if Diana were a gingerbread woman, that is.”

“She is real pretty, Marilla,” Rachel agreed.

“It’s all silliness,” Marilla said, “but I suppose there can’t be much lasting harm in it,” which was Marilla’s way of accepting the compliments.

The new gingerbread Diana had the same pink frock and black tresses as her predecessor, but displayed them with much more grace. Even her eyelashes were – by some artist’s magic – elegantly rendered enough to do justice to Diana’s own.

“Jerry’s out with the cows right now, isn’t he?” Anne said, peering out the window. “Oh, I can’t bear to waste a single second! I’m going to go find him and beg him to run it over to her at Orchard Slope, as stealthily as he can. Marilla, might I promise him an extra helping of potatoes at supper tonight, if he does it? You know, he really does love your potatoes; I’m _sure_ that would lure him.”

“Fine, fine,” Marilla said, “so long as you peel them.”

“I’d peel a thousand potatoes!” Anne announced grandly, and set off in a blaze.

“Mittens and hat, too, Anne Shirley!” Marilla called after her; Anne took an obedient detour to retrieve them.

“It’s a terrible shame she’s being kept from Diana Barry,” Rachel said, while Marilla turned her attention to another cookie, and the red frosting, “when anyone can see plain as day that she’s the most faithful friend a little girl could have. All that hullabaloo about the currant wine! It all comes down to gluttony, that’s what, and Anne wasn’t the one pouring.”

“I told you,” Marilla said as she worked, giving the cookie head crimson curls that flowed quite romantically. “Mrs. Barry wouldn’t budge an inch. That woman’s frightful stubborn, and even if she has realized she’s accomplishing nothing save for making two children miserable, well, I doubt she’ll admit it anytime soon.”

 _Eh ehm!_ Marilla looked to her side and there was Rachel, convinced as ever of her own right to everybody else’s business. She stared down at the gingerbread Anne-in-progress, then up at Marilla with an expression that declared there was no use trying to hide anything from her.

“She might as well have a set to give to Diana,” Marilla explained in tones very brittle and entirely practical. “She’ll squeal herself silly over it, I don’t doubt, but that’s not a very high price to pay.”

“Oh, Marilla,” Rachel said, sounding almost proud. “That little girl has won your whole heart.”

“Check the oven for me, will you, Rachel? Mind the second batch or they’ll burn to a crisp,” Marilla said briskly (Rachel laughed knowingly to herself), and glanced out the window. There she was trotting back up toward the house, red braids trailing behind an obediently-donned blue hat. Marilla added the tiniest flecks of violet to gingerbread-Anne’s eyes; the girl would work herself into an absolute tizzy over that. But tizzies were a spot more acceptable around the holidays, Marilla decided, and wondered how to go about finding Anne a new copy of _A Christmas Carol_ in time for Christmas morning.


End file.
